During the last few hectic weeks of the Falklands War, every man on
HMS Coventry realised that the odds of emerging unscathed were
stacked against us. We always knew that we might be hit from the air -
it was just a question of where the blow would fall, and of how many
casualties we would sustain. After all, three British warships had
already been sunk and others grievously damaged.

I frequently thought along these lines and I am sure most of my
sailors did, but we never admitted it openly. That would have been
demoralising. Conversations were brave and cheerful, full of
confidence that we would all get home safely. I was shocked when, a
day or two before the end, the first lieutenant, my second-in command,
came into my cabin and with noticeable hesitation said: 'You know,
sir, some of us are not going to get back to Portsmouth.' Although it
disturbed me to hear him say this, I thought it was very brave of him
to admit to his captain what he really felt, and at least we no
longer had to pretend to each other about the risks we were running.
He included himself among those who would not return and in his last
letter home he told his wife as much. She was to receive the letter
just after she heard the news that he had been killed.

Towards the end of our time, the strains were definitely beginning to
tell. Although most people remained outwardly strong and in control
of themselves, feelings clearly ran high. Once, quite unprompted, a
young sailor on the bridge showed me photographs of his girlfriend
and talked freely about her. He was in need of reassurance and this
was his way of showing it. There had already been air raids that day,
and we knew the enemy would be among us again very soon. On a similar
occasion, a petty officer produced a prayer, given to him by his
mother when he first joined the Navy, which he kept with him all the
time and which clearly meant a great deal to him, especially now. He
asked me to read it in our church service on Sunday and then moved
quickly out on to the wings of the bridge for fear of showing the
tears in his eyes. War can be an emotional business.

I found it depressing to wake each morning to beautiful, clear and
sunny weather which favoured the enemy air force and illuminated us
sharply against the blue sea. I would wait on the bridge, heavily
clothed for protection against fire, life jacket and survival suit
around my waist, ready for the next air raid warning. When it came, I
would go down to the operations room to prepare to counter the threat.
These moments invariably demanded a certain amount of nerve: you had
to put on a confident face as men watched you go below and wondered
whether we would win the next round and survive unharmed.

Tuesday, May 25, 1982, was another of those days. We had survived two
air raids and shot down three aircraft with missiles. Inevitably,
there was another warning and I went below feeling more fearful than
before. I paused for a moment at the top of the hatch and talked
briefly to Lieutenant Rod Heath, the officer responsible for the
missile system. I never saw him again. At 6pm precisely, I pressed
the action- station alarm from the command position in the operations
room and within four minutes the ship was closed down, ready and
braced for action. As we listened to the air battle raging, we tried
desperately to avoid losing radar contact with the fast and low-
flying enemy aircraft and to predict where they were going next.
There was the familiar air of quiet professionalism, the sound of
swiftly tapping keyboards as operators tracked targets and of soft
but urgent voices exchanging information over the internal lines. It
was like some frantic computer game, and we knew we would lose the
battle if we could not keep up with its ever quickening pace. As I
glanced around at the warfare team, their pale and anxious faces said
everything. I looked at the clock - it was nearly 6.15 - and prayed
that time would somehow accelerate, enabling us to see out what would
surely be the last air raid of the day. Even now, I knew that outside
in the South Atlantic the light was already beginning to fade, the
prelude to another brilliant sunset.

As it was, we came up against a very brave and determined attack by
four Argentinian aircraft. We opened fire with everything we had,
from Sea Dart missiles to machine guns and even rifles, but two
aircraft got through, hitting us with three 1, 000lb bombs. My world
exploded. I was aware of a flash, of heat and the crackling of the
radar set as it literally disintegrated in front of my face. When I
came to my senses, I could see nothing through the dense black smoke,
only people on fire, but I could sense that the compartment had been
totally devastated. All power and communication had been lost. The
ship was flooding and on fire. We had been plunged into a nightmare
of chaos and confusion.

Within about 20 minutes, the Coventry would be upside down, her keel
horizontally above the sea. Nineteen brave men would be dead. It
still strikes me as remarkable that some 280 of us got out of the
ship, whose interior was utterly devastated and filled with thick
suffocating smoke. I can only put that down to good training,
discipline and high morale. You need all of those - especially the
last - in desperate situations. As for myself, I was two decks down
and had a long way to go to reach fresh air. I could see no way out
and was suffocating in the smoke. The ladders were gone and doors
blocked by fire. I was calm and not at all frightened. I was feeling
quite rational and was prepared to die. There seemed to be no
alternative.

We had been on training exercises off Gibraltar in
April 1982 when we heard the startling news that South Georgia and
the Falkland Islands had been overrun. We were ordered south
immediately and at best speed for Ascension Island. War still seemed
unthinkable. I wrote home to my wonderful wife Diana, known as D: '
Here I am steaming south. It's very hot. We're all praying for a
political solution and a quick end to the problem - otherwise we
could be here for several months. Hardly bears thinking about.'

Ascension brought us up with a start. Weapons training intensified,
and we carried out frequent first-aid and damage-control exercises,
simulating fire and flooding. We took on a vast amount of stores and
spares and received charts of the Falklands - which was just as well,
since for most of us they had been no more than distant dots in the
atlas at school. For some, they were never to have much appeal. Much
later, when we got our first actual glimpse of the islands, one of my
officers logged in his diary: 'What a dump. Looks like Wales on a wet
Sunday after England have beaten them at Cardiff Arms Park and all
the pubs have run out of beer.' From intelligence briefings we
learned that the Argentinians had 200 front-line aircraft and two
modern submarines armed with very effective homing torpedoes. They
would be a nasty threat if properly deployed. We were worried now -
and with good reason.

All the trappings and comforts of peacetime were removed as we
secured the ship for action. Wind- surfing boards and a sailing
dinghy were among items thrown over the side. We mounted machine
guns in the ship's Lynx helicopter, improvising rotating platforms
for the guns from swivel chairs. Such ingenuity would see us out of
many tight spots in the days ahead. On one occasion, we would somehow
repair our defective long-range radar in the middle of an air raid by
using the heating elements from a mess deck toaster.

After we left Ascension and headed further south, Admiral Sandy
Woodward-the Battle Group commander, came on board and addressed the
crew. It was the first time we heard someone actually say that war
was possible and that we could expect ship losses and casualties on
our side. This came as a shock to many on board, but it helped us to
concentrate even more on preparing for what was clearly going to be a
tough fight. As we left the tropics, the weather began to change:
grey skies, biting winds and crashing waves. We could cope with the
worsening weather but for me this period before the conflict started
was the most testing, and the most frightening. It was a time of
both self-examination and adjustment. I had to remove from my mind
all thoughts of a safe, familiar peacetime world and come to terms
with danger and violence. This was far from easy. I remember a
terrible hollow feeling in my stomach as the full realisation of what
was happening dawned on me. I felt I was being swept helplessly along
in a fast flowing river to an uncertain end, and that I was unable to
strike out for the banks and safety. I could scarcely believe we
were going to be asked to resolve the issue by force when we were so
heavily outnumbered on the ground and in the air. I reckoned the
Argentinian Air Force alone could win the war and that just those two
submarines could bring us to our knees by picking off the aircraft
carriers or the troop ships as they approached the landing area. I
feared for both the reputation and the future of the Royal Navy
should we fail. But I noticed that the men were now watching me more
closely and listening to every word I uttered. Any chink in my armour
would increase their anxiety and perhaps reduce their will to fight.
I had to remain outwardly unafraid and cheerful, whatever my inner
turmoil. Their lives were in my hands and I could sense that they
felt it.

It was soon time for wills to be completed and last letters home
written. Morphine was issued, along with life jackets, survival suits
and identity discs. I scribbled a letter to my wife: "All is well as I
lead my ship's company into war. What a thing to be doing! But,
although I hate it all, I am ready for it. I have terrible thoughts
about leaving you and the girls to continue life without me. I hope
if it comes to it you will be very, very brave. Life must go on and
you three must be happy. But I will be back, so don't worry about
me. I am in good health and the ship is ready for anything." Our
readiness was soon to be tested, as by now the diplomatic
negotiations had failed. Britain declared a 200-mile exclusion zone
around the Falklands. Come inside it, the enemy was warned, and we
will attack.

As the Navy force neared the zone, we in Coventry, plus HMS
Sheffield and HMS Glasgow, were sent 20 miles ahead of the carrier
group. We were on picket duty, out there to detect and deal with any
threat to the highly valuable ships of the main force by taking them
on with our own missiles or calling in help from the Harrier jets on
the aircraft carriers. The task of the picket ship is a lonely one:
you are intentionally placed in harm's way. You are likely to be sunk
first in any attack on the main force, and you are always a tempting
target to a submarine. Such was my lot, but I wasn't complaining as,
in the early hours of May 1, the Carrier Battle Group entered the
exclusion zone and we were at war. After three long weeks, the worry
and uncertainty were over. The faint- hearted became strong. And I no
longer feared that I was being swept helplessly down a river: I was
simply following its course wherever it might take me, and I was in
full control. As well as being on picket duty, another of Coventry's
tasks was to creep inshore and bombard military installations near
the Falklands' capital Port Stanley. SAS patrols operating behind
enemy lines provided us with the coordinates of the artillery, radar
and ammunition dumps we should hit. The SAS were already up to their
usual tricks - setting off a random explosion here, leaving a
discarded British cigarette packet there, and perhaps even adding
something nasty to the water supplies. Some of them took passage in
Coventry before being dropped for their missions. Afterwards, word
went around that they had liberated the odd carving knife from the
ship's galley, either to discard near their vacated campfires as an
overt sign of their presence - or to use more directly on the enemy.

Four days into the fighting, we were having trouble with our long-
range radar, so we moved to a safer sector to carry out repairs.
Sheffield took our place. Then we and Glasgow got wind of a possible
Exocet missile attack. It was hard for warfare officers to make
these calls as they scanned their radars and listened to their
electronic sensors. The weather and atmospheric conditions often
played tricks and any number of spurious contacts would appear on our
screens: once, we engaged and destroyed what we thought were
Argentine patrol boats, only to discover they had been a group of
albatrosses. Glasgow seemed sure about the Exocet attack but
Sheffield was uncertain. We three screening ships kept talking to
each other to try to work out exactly what was happening. Suddenly
there was silence from Sheffield. Complete silence. Had she suffered
a communications failure? No such luck. An Exocet had found her,
skimming the sea at hundreds of miles per hour and slamming into her
starboard side, creating an inferno of fire and smoke. The
Argentinian pilot had come in very low, underneath Sheffield's main
radar beams, seen an echo on his own radar, and just fired. Then he
skedaddled home, not even aware of what he had done. Twenty members
of Sheffield's crew were dead, and when the fire got out of control,
the ship had to be abandoned. The effect of her loss on my ship's
company was devastating. Hardly a word was spoken for several hours
and people had to struggle to overcome their feelings and fears. But
although we had all been shocked, we were becoming battle hardened
ourselves, and the next day our confidence returned and we became
even more determined to hit back at the enemy.

When it was all over, there would be time for reflection and
understanding, and to express sympathy for the losses incurred on
both sides. But for now, I am sad to say, it was all about killing.
Following the attack on Sheffield, the Battle Group retreated so as
not to risk getting too close to the islands. This meant less air
cover for us from the Harriers. This was bad news, and it got worse
when Glasgow was put out of action, with large holes in her sides
from enemy bombs. We were left to shoulder even more of the hazardous
tasks. We were deployed to the north of West Falkland along with HMS
Broadsword. Although it was not spelt out in as many words, it was
clear to me that our job was to draw the enemy fire towards us and
away from San Carlos Water - the area designated as a landing zone
for our troops - and that we were to be sacrificed if necessary.

Although every ship involved in the war had drawn a short straw, ours,
I think, was the shortest. During the next few days Coventry would be
in the front line against an enemy hell-bent on preventing a landing
and advance on Stanley. D-Day had been set for May 21 and it was not
long before an armada of ships, with all our troops, weapons and
equipment, appeared over the horizon. They were embarking on the
largest British amphibious operation since World War II and, to my
mind, probably one of the riskiest. Under cover of darkness, the
landing force went into Falkland Sound and the first units landed on
the beaches of San Carlos at 4.30am. The outcome of the war would now
depend on securing the beachhead from which the troops could advance
and fight. And that's where we in HMS Coventry came in. With
Broadsword, we were to act as a missile trap - to intercept aircraft
as they swept in over the Islands before they could drop their bombs
on the assault ships in the Sound. But it was not going to be easy.

Although we could see the enemy aircraft on radar soon after they
took off from their mainland bases 200 miles away, when they
descended to low level on nearing the Islands we lost them completely.
They flew low, following the contours of the hills, and were absorbed
by the land clutter on our radar displays. A surprise low-level
attack was something our Sea Dart missile system was not designed to
cope with. As the air war raged above and around us, I would listen
on my headset to the voices of the Harrier pilots as we directed them
towards the enemy. They were almost conversational but at the same
time urgent, clear and decisive. It was a little like listening to a
commentary on a very exciting football match, only the stakes were
considerably higher. The Harriers were forever active,
outmanoeuvring the enemy, scoring hits. It was a battle of attrition,
and one which we appeared to be winning. But I realised just how
vulnerable the Coventry was, exposed for long periods at the heart of
so much air activity. Sheffield was gone. I wondered when our turn
would come. We were all very aware that May 25 was Argentina's
National Day, which would stir the enemy into producing his best and
most determined effort.

The night before, I had a vivid dream of my twin brother Robert, who
had been killed in a road accident when we were both 25. I had never
dreamt about him before. He was sitting at a bare table in an empty
room and crying. He seemed to be worrying about me. I was looking
down on him from one end of the room and just said: 'Don't worry, I'
ll be all right.' As with most dreams, it faded quickly when I woke
and I thought no more about it.

From first light, Coventry and Broadsword were braced for action, and
when it came it was fast and furious. The Argentinians must have
worked out what a nuisance we were being, co-co-ordinating the
defence of the landing force, and they were now clearly determined to
take us out. Another raid was on its way. We knew the planes were
close but try as we might, we could not see them on the radar. Then
suddenly the lookouts on the bridge spotted them as they came clear
of Pebble Island about ten miles away, two aircraft, probably
Skyhawks, flying very fast and low straight towards us. It was too
late to get my missiles anywhere near to firing but our barrage of
fire from the deck drove them off, and they veered towards Broadsword,
launching two bombs at her. One missed altogether but the other hit
the sea, bounced, went through the quarterdeck, up through the flight
deck and destroyed the ship's helicopter. It did not explode, however,
and there was no further damage. Later, we discovered Broadsword had
tried to get the Skyhawks with her Sea Wolf missiles. She had the
pair clearly in her missile sights but the system switched off at the
critical moment. It turned out the software could not decide which
target to fire at when two aircraft were flying close together and so
it did nothing. A crucial opportunity was lost and the enemy
aircraft got away. Perhaps if Broadsword had shot down even one of
them, they might have thought twice about coming again. But come
they did.

Less than a minute later, another attack began. Two Skyhawks, two
Mirages. But again, where were they? I strained to find them on my
radar set. Suddenly, from the bridge, two aircraft were sighted
heading straight for us, so low that water sprayed up behind them. We
opened fire with all the deck guns we could muster and even tried to
dazzle the pilots with beams of light from our signalling equipment.
But this time we could not beat them off. Down in the control room,
there was a dreadful silence. The Argentinian pilots had outwitted us.
Both aircraft got through and released their bombs. They tore into
the side of the ship and ripped their destructive paths downwards
through steel decks before coming to rest deep inside the hull. Then
they exploded. In the operations room the vicious shock wave knocked
me out.

When I came round, I was still sitting, very precariously, on the
edge of my now broken chair in front of what little remained of the
radar screen into which I had been peering intently a few seconds
before. My headset and microphone had disappeared - burnt off me
without a trace. So too had my anti-flash hood and gloves. I looked
to my left and saw a sheet of orange flame leap out of the hatch down
into the computer room below and envelop a man as he attempted to
climb out. He had nearly reached the top of the ladder, and someone
stretched towards him and tried to catch his hand. But it was too
late. The fire consumed him, and he fell back with a final,
despairing cry. I looked all about me in the darkness and through
the thick black smoke I saw a few dim shapes of people with their
clothes alight, human torches. One of my officers was beating out the
flames on his own head where his headset melted into his scalp. As
far as it was possible to tell in the dark, the ladder behind me
which led to the bridge was broken. I struggled towards the door to
the main passage but that way was now just a wall of fire and
terrible destruction. I was trapped. I could see no way out and I
was fighting for breath. Suffocation begins with a welcome calming
effect, yet it is only one small step away from collapse and death. I
was not far from it.

Coventry, crippled by the explosion and with a hole in her side below
the waterline, began to keel over, and the ice- cold waters of the
South Atlantic thundered into the engine rooms, the largest
compartments in the ship. The situation could not have been worse.
Watertight doors had been blown off and water and lethal smoke began
to penetrate the whole length of the ship. With Coventry in danger of
capsizing, we now depended on the initiative and bravery of
individuals to rescue trapped crewmates and get them to safety. In
Coventry's dark and devastated operations room, semi-conscious and
suffocating, I heard urgent voices of authority summoning help and
maintaining order. But I was fading fast. I thought of home and
wondered who was going to mow the lawn in my absence. Then my mind
went blank.

Suddenly - and I really don't know how much later this was - I found
myself in clearer air in the starboard passageway. I have no
recollection at all of how I got there, but suddenly I was alert
again, or so I thought, and intent on getting to the bridge as fast
as possible. I made my way aft up twisted ladders towards the bridge
from where I thought I could exercise some authority and get the ship
heading in the right direction. When I got there it was deserted and
filled with smoke and fire billowing up through an open hatch. It was
untenable as a command post, and anyway I could not get in. I rested
on the port bridge wing, and tried to take in what was happening. I
saw one of my air warfare officers, Lieutenant-Commander Mike O'
Connell, and ordered him to get the ship going fast to the east to
get us into safer waters. He calmly replied, 'Aye, aye sir.' I had no
idea at that moment how absurd my order was. Coventry was not going
anywhere, as I am sure Mike must have known. All power and
communication were lost, the ship was stopped, burning furiously and
beginning to roll over. She was in her death throes.

I became aware that my wrists and hands had been burnt. The rubber of
my anti-flash gloves had melted into my skin. I removed the pieces of
loose skin and the remains of the gloves. My face felt hot from the
flash of the bomb explosion, as though I had been exposed to the sun
for too long. I climbed the now steep slope to the starboard side and
saw the ship's company abandoning ship. It was all remarkably orderly
and calm, looking just like a peacetime exercise. I never discovered
who gave the general order to abandon ship. Perhaps no one did. But
people very sensibly just carried on and did it. Life-rafts were now
in the water and people were jumping into the sea to get into them. I
looked on almost as though I was watching a film, and then moved down
to the forecastle to prepare to leave myself. People were helping
each other to put on their life jackets and survival suits. Someone
helped me with mine as my hands were painful. I don't remember who he
was but it was very good of him, given how anxious he must have been
about his own safety. The ship was now almost on her beam ends and
it was time for the captain to leave. When I had seen everyone jump
into the sea and get into life-rafts, I walked down the side, jumped
the last two feet into the water and swam to a life-raft about 20
yards away.

I was pulled into it by someone with a cheerful smile who said,
'There you are, sir, it worked.' It was the petty officer who had
given me the prayer, which was still in my pocket. I was hauled out
of the sea and taken to Broadsword, now no longer a ship's captain
but a mere passenger, just waiting to be told what to do. I was in my
cabin when one of Broadsword's officers came in and asked me, rather
nervously, whether I would like to see my ship. I looked out from a
porthole to see Coventry for the last time. She was upside down a
short distance away, keel showing just a few feet above the sea and
her propellers up in the air. Less than an hour ago, she had been an
efficient fighting unit, complete with a brave and determined crew. I
could hardly take it in. The loss of Coventry - along with the
merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor on the same day, sunk by an Exocet -
shook both the Task Force and the country. Yet we soon realised that
the air battle had largely been won, and that this had been the enemy's
final, desperate fling at us. No more of our ships would be lost,
and our troops could land on the Falklands largely unhindered from
the sky.

A Royal Marine Commando, who was ashore when he heard we had
been hit, remarked: 'Thank God for good old Coventry. If it wasn't
for her, the bombs would have been falling on us.' Nothing, though,
could ease the pain of losing a ship and so many fine men. We had not
deserved to go down on that last fierce day of fighting. It was like
falling at the last fence in the Grand National when well in the lead
- only a million times worse. From Broadsword we were transferred to
Stromness, a converted troopship. Safely on board, I was feeling
sorry for myself. I simply could not avoid the overwhelming feeling
that, as their captain, I had let my people down. I did not find it
easy to be with the officers or men, and chose to recuperate slowly
in the confines of my cabin. I think I probably worried about what
people thought of me. The fact that I so admired the ship's company
only made me feel even more upset for having put them through these
ordeals. Eventually, I heard some of the men were anxious about me.
They wanted to make sure I was all right. Their concern for their
captain touched me deeply and persuaded me to become more sociable
again. It also made me feel immensely humble and merely intensified
my regard and respect for my ship's company. Love might sound an
unlikely word, but I did love my men. There can be no bond closer
than that between men who have fought side by side in battle.

While I was in Stromness, my dream about my twin brother Robert
suddenly came back to me. I was wide awake this time, but everything
seemed just as vivid as when I had first dreamt it on the eve of our
sinking. It all returned with such surprising force and clarity that
I realised it had been my brother who had saved me. It had been with
his guidance that I had walked, almost unconsciously, out of the
inferno of the operations room to safety. The complete void in my
recollection between preparing myself to die one moment and being
alert and safe the next suddenly had an explanation. I have always
felt my brother around me as I journey through life. I now know he
was with me on that dreadful day.